Odyssey of the Mind Le Tour Guide Problem 3 Division II 2011 North Carolina State Tournament

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• published: 06 Apr 2011
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April 2, 2011 South Charlotte Middle School OM team performing Problem 3, Division II, "Le Tour Guide", placing 1st in North Carolina, in the Middle School Division. The team advanced to World Finals competition at the University of Maryland during Memorial Day Weekend, May 2011. Teams from 38 US states and 16+ countries competed over three days. The team placed 4th at the World Finals, with 64 teams competing. The team lost to New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. In 2011-2012, the team has moved up to Division III, and will compete in Problem 3, for Providence High School in Charlotte, NC. The idea for the skit's story, the script writing, the sets, the costumes: all were created by the seven team members. OM is "hands on" for kids and "hands off" for adults. Adults taught the kids how to make/sew/build basic items, but the team created everything themselves. Team could not spend more than $125, total, for costumes and sets. The Spirit of the Problem is for the team to create and present a performance that includes a tour guide who represents a classical literary figure and takes tourists on a tour of three different places. The performance will include an inaccurate explanation given by the tour guide, and an accurate one given by a tourist. It will also include an inanimate item that becomes animated and a guard that watches over something that is worthless and provides the reason why it needs to be guarded. SCMS's skit is about Peter Pan and Tinker Bell taking four characters from famous paintings to Lascaux, France to see a prehistoric cave painting, a little girl's room, and The Louvre, Paris, France, both outside and inside. The characters are: Mona Lisa, The Scream and the couple from American Gothic. Peter is incorrect in his explanation about the cave paintings, and Mona Lisa corrects him. The little girl guards her worthless art work. The inanimate object is actually the four characters as paintings/puppets, who talk to themselves in human form, at the end of the skit. Also, the little girl is a descendant of the character, Wendy, from Peter Pan. This is why Tinker Bell dislikes her. Video credit to Linda Wolf! Peter Pan's costume is based on the book version of Peter Pan. It incorporates the costume description from the book, "clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees." The top and pants are made of duct tape and table cloth. Artificial leaves are used for the sash. His "pan pipe" is made from plastic straws covered in duct tape, and wrapped in yarn. His sword is paint stirrer sticks, foam board, chicken wire and a toilet paper roll, all wrapped in duct tape. Tinker Bell's lime green dress was made using tablecloth and duct tape, then decorated it with dark green duct tape in zigzag. The zigzag represents the veins in a leaf. Her wings are made from foam board, have a sparkly pattern, and her dress is embellished with leaves. Mona Lisa's top is made from a discarded gold curtain, dyed black, then embellished with gold fabric. The skirt is made from fabric, a bed sheet, and tissue paper crumpled up and hot glued on. The Scream's cloak is made out of trash bags that our team ironed together. The front of his outfit, which is black plastic plates that are also ironed together, creates a really cool effect. The team watched a video on YouTube to learn how to create a bald cap out of liquid latex, baby powder, a wig's head, and a hair dryer, held on with Spirit Gum. American Gothic: The dress for the daughter was inspired by shingles on a roof, using cut up cracker and cereal boxes, and we followed that sort of pattern to create an interesting effect. For the father's costume, we wanted it to really resemble the painting and used duct tape and a plastic table cloth. The pitchfork is made out of a broken Halloween scythe, wire hangers, popsicle sticks and duct tape. Glasses are made from chicken wire. Little Girl: We used folded up newspaper to make the tutu, then attached them to a duct tape/tablecloth skirt. The corset is made from newspaper, clear packing tape, and a plastic tablecloth, with velcro holding everything together. Lascaux, France: To make the backdrop, we used grocery store paper bags and masking tape. We drew out the scene in pencil, and then filled it in entirely with crayon. We crumbled it up several times for added depth and flexibility, and then water colored the whole thing. The Louvre, outside: We made this scene entirely from duct tape. We ripped pieces to precisely replicate a picture we found on the internet. The Louvre, inside: the team was taught how to use a drill, jigsaw, and dremel to cut the holes out for the paintings/puppets, and then taught how to attach hinges so that the three wooden panels would fold into a "Z" when travelling. Then, the team designed three feet that would keep the set upright during the performance.